PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

_____________

No. 20-1840

_____________

Y.B., on behalf of S.B.; F.B., on behalf of S.B.

v.

HOWELL TOWNSHIP BOARD OF EDUCATION,

Y.B., on behalf of S.B.,

Appellant

_____________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of New Jersey

(D.C. No. 3-18-cv-10950)

District Judge: Honorable Brian R. Martinotti

_____________

Submitted on January 21, 2021
2

Before: 

HARDIMAN, ROTH, Circuit Judges, and PRATTER,*

District Judge.

(Filed: July 19, 2021)

Michael I. Inzelbuch

555 Madison Avenue

S.I. Bank & Trust Building

Lakewood, NJ 08701

Counsel for Appellant

Viola S. Lordi

Eric J. Marcy, Sr.

Wilentz Goldman & Spitzer

90 Woodbridge Center Drive

Suite 900, Box 10

Woodbridge, NJ 07095

Counsel for Appellee

* The Honorable Gene E.K. Pratter, District Judge, United 

States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 

sitting by designation.
3

________________

OPINION OF THE COURT

________________

HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge.

This appeal arises under the Individuals with 

Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq.

Section 1415(j) of that law—commonly known as the “stayput” provision—provides generally that eligible students must

remain in their current educational settings during certain 

procedures. But Section 1414(d)(2)(C)(i)(I)—the intrastate 

transfer provision—says that schools need only provide 

eligible transfer students comparable services to those they 

were previously receiving. The question presented is whether 

the “stay-put” provision applies, thereby requiring provision of 

the same services the child was previously receiving, when a 

student voluntarily transfersschool districts within a state. Like 

the District Court, we hold it does not. 

I

A

S.B. is a twelve-year-old boy diagnosed with Down 

Syndrome. As a result, he “shows delays in cognitive, social, 

and motor areas,” Dist. Ct. Dkt. No. 1-3, at 3, and requires 

special educational care. In 2014, S.B. and his parents moved 

from Brooklyn, New York, to Lakewood, New Jersey. Upon 

the family’s arrival, S.B.’s parents requested an individualized 

education program (IEP) for S.B. from the Lakewood 

Township School District. Lakewood determined it could not 

provide S.B. an IDEA-mandated free appropriate public 
4

education (FAPE) at its own public schools, so it crafted an 

IEP that placed S.B. at the private School for Children with 

Hidden Intelligence (SCHI). Lakewood reimbursed Appellant 

for SCHI-associated costs. 

In November 2016, shortly after S.B.’s Lakewood IEP 

was renewed for another year—including the provision 

providing for his placement at SCHI—the family moved 

homes and transferred S.B. from Lakewood to the Howell 

School District. Howell’s staff reviewed the Lakewood IEP 

and met with S.B. and his parents at Memorial Elementary 

School. After meeting with S.B., Howell informed Appellant 

“that [S.B.’s] IEP can be implemented in [Howell’s special 

education] class at Memorial Elementary School where [S.B.] 

will receive a free appropriate public education in the least 

restrictive environment.” Dist. Ct. Dkt. No. 20-7, at 1. Despite 

this assurance, Appellant continued to send S.B. to SCHI. On 

February 3, 2017, Howell terminated S.B.’s enrollment. 

B

In July 2017, over seven months after Howell informed 

Appellant it would provide S.B. a FAPE in accordance with his 

IEP, Appellant requested a due process hearing under the 

IDEA. See 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f). Appellant challenged 

Howell’s refusal to implement S.B.’s IEP—which he argued 

required S.B.’s continued attendance at SCHI regardless of 

Howell’s ability to provide the services the IEP called for—

and asserted that Howell must reimburse Appellant for S.B.’s 

SCHI tuition. In April 2018, an administrative law judge ruled 

for Howell. Two months later, Appellant filed a complaint in 
5

the District Court alleging Howell violated the IDEA.1In 

March 2020, the District Court affirmed the ALJ and granted 

summary judgment for Howell. Appellant timely appealed. 

II

Y.B.’s cause of action arose under the IDEA, 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1415(i)(2)(A), so the District Court had federal question 

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331. Our jurisdiction lies under 

28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review the District Court’s legal 

conclusions de novo and its findings of fact for clear error. 

Blunt v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 767 F.3d 247, 265 (3d Cir. 

2014). When, as in this case, the District Court reviews an 

ALJ’s decision, we apply a “modified de novo” standard of 

review, giving “due weight” to the factual determinations of 

the ALJ, which we consider “prima facie correct.” Id. at 266.

III

In 1975, Congress enacted the Education for All 

Handicapped Children Act (since retitled the IDEA), see 20 

U.S.C. § 1400 et seq., after determining that a majority of the 

Nation’s disabled children were not receiving adequate public 

educational services.2 The law sought “to ensure that all 

1 Appellant also alleged Howell violated comparable 

provisions of the New Jersey Code. The District Court 

exercised supplemental jurisdiction over those claims under 28 

U.S.C. § 1367. On appeal, Appellant does not argue the state 

law claims, citing the New Jersey Code only twice in passing 

in his opening brief. 

2 The Act “was passed in response to Congress’ perception that 

a majority of handicapped children in the United States ‘were 
6

children with disabilities have available to them a free 

appropriate public education,” or FAPE. § 1400(d)(1)(A).

Under the IDEA, a FAPE includes “special education and 

related services”—both “designed instruction . . . to meet the 

unique needs of a child,” and “other supportive services”

necessary to guarantee a child benefits from his special 

education. § 1401(9), (26), (29).

“The IDEA offers federal funds to States in exchange 

for a commitment[] to furnish” a FAPE “to all children with 

certain physical or intellectual disabilities.” Fry v. Napoleon 

Cmty. Schs., 137 S. Ct. 743, 748 (2017). Congress recognized, 

however, that the failure of schools to educate disabled 

students “reflected more than a lack of financial resources at 

the state and local levels.” Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 309 

(1988). So the IDEA “confers upon disabled students an 

enforceable substantive right to public education in 

participating States.” Id. at 310; see also Fry, 137 S. Ct. at 749.

The IDEA also incorporates state law pertaining to the 

educational rights of disabled students so schools must comply 

with both the substantive and procedural requirements of the 

IDEA and state standards. § 1401(9)(B).

either totally excluded from schools or [were] sitting idly in 

regular classrooms awaiting the time when they were old 

enough to drop out.’” Geis v. Bd. of Educ. of Parsippany-Troy 

Hills, 774 F.2d 575, 577 (3d Cir. 1985) (quoting H.R. REP. NO. 

94-332, at 2 (1975)). The federal programs that did exist at that

time to assist disabled students were recognized as “minimal, 

fractionated, uncoordinated, and frequently given a low 

priority in the education community.” H.R. REP. NO. 94-332, 

at 2.
7

The “primary vehicle,” Honig, 484 U.S. at 311, for 

providing each eligible student with an IDEA-mandated FAPE 

is the IEP, § 1414(d). An IEP is a written statement, 

“developed, reviewed, and revised” by the “IEP Team”—a 

group of school officials and the parents of the student—that 

spells out how a school will meet an individual disabled 

student’s educational needs. § 1414(d)(1)(A), (B). Most 

notably, an IEP describes a child’s “present levels of academic 

achievement,” offers “measurable annual goals” to “enable the 

child to . . . make progress in the general educational 

curriculum,” and describes “supplementary aids and 

services . . . provided to the child” to meet those goals.

§ 1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(I), (II)(aa), (IV); accord Fry, 137 S. Ct. at 

749. Of particular relevance here, an IEP focuses on the 

services needed to provide a student with a FAPE, not on the 

brick-and-mortar location where those services are provided.

Expecting that parents and school officials would 

sometimes disagree about which services were necessary for a 

disabled child to receive a FAPE, Congress created disputeresolution procedures in the IDEA. Those protections give 

parents the right to: “examine all records” relating to their 

child’s education, § 1415(b)(1); receive written notification

before any changes are made to their child’s IEP, § 1415(b)(3); 

file a complaint about the provision of a FAPE, § 1415(b)(6); 

pursue mediation, § 1415(e); begin an “impartial due process 

hearing” before a state educational agency, § 1415(f); and, if 

still unsatisfied, seek judicial review by filing an action in a 

competent state or federal court, § 1415(i)(2).
8

IV

A

Having discussed the general structure of the IDEA, we 

turn now to the two provisions at issue in this case. The

“stay-put” provision provides that “during the pendency” of 

certain administrative and legal proceedings, “unless the State 

or local educational agency and the parents otherwise agree, 

the child shall remain in the then-current educational 

placement of the child.” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(j).3 The IDEA’s

intrastate transfer provision, on the other hand, provides that a 

school district receiving an intrastate transfer student with a 

previously existing IEP “shall provide . . . a free appropriate 

public education, including services comparable to those 

described in the previously held IEP, in consultation with the 

parents until such time as the [new district] adopts the 

previously held IEP or develops, adopts, and implements a new 

IEP.” 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(2)(C)(i)(I) (emphasis added). In a 

3 Since Appellant did not begin a due process hearing under the 

IDEA until July 2017, it is unclear whether any “stay-put”-

eligible proceedings were pending when the dispute between 

Howell and Appellant arose in January 2017. See Michael C. 

ex rel. Stephen C. v. Radnor Twp. Sch. Dist., 202 F.3d 642, 654 

(3d Cir. 2000); Kari H. ex rel. Dan H. v. Franklin Special Sch. 

Dist., 125 F.3d 855 (table), 1997 WL 468326, at *6 (6th Cir. 

1997) (per curiam) (listing “due process hearings,” “state 

administrative review,” and “civil actions brought in either 

state or federal district court” as the only ways to trigger the 

“stay-put” provision). Howell did not make this argument, so 

we assume that qualifying proceedings were pending when the 

dispute between the parties began.
9

broad sense, then, both provisions discuss the procedural 

safeguards afforded to students during periods of educational 

transition. Unlike the “stay-put” provision—which requires the 

continued implementation of the child’s original IEP—the 

intrastate transfer provision requires only that the new district 

provide “services comparable” to those in the child’s most 

recent IEP. See id.

We must first determine which of these two competing 

provisions—each requiring something different from Howell

(the “same” IEP under the “stay-put” provision, or 

“comparable services” under the intrastate transfer 

provision)—governs this case. Appellant argues the “stay-put” 

provision controls, while Howell claims the intrastate transfer 

provision applies. We agree with Howell, and hold that in a 

voluntary intrastate transfer, the “stay-put” provision does not 

apply, and the new school district need only provide “services 

comparable” to those the student had been receiving under the

IEP in effect before the transfer. Two flaws in Appellant’s 

proffered approach compel this result. First, Appellant’s broad 

reading of the “stay-put” provision—that it governs even 

voluntary intrastate transfers—would render 

§ 1414(d)(2)(C)(i)(I) a nullity. See Colautti v. Franklin, 439 

U.S. 379, 392 (1979) (noting “the elementary canon of 

construction that a statute should be interpreted so as not to 

render one part inoperative,” “redundant,” or “largely 

superfluous”); ANTONIN SCALIA & BRYAN A. GARNER,

READING LAW: THE INTERPRETATION OF LEGAL TEXTS 174–

79 (2012) (discussing the Surplusage Canon). Second, 

Appellant’s approach would make school district compliance 

with the IDEA’s transfer provisions contingent on the 

unilateral power of the parent to invoke the “stay-put” 

provision. Even if the new district could provide the transferee 
10

child with all the services listed in his IEP, it would be 

precluded from doing so under Appellant’s approach if the 

parent simply invoked the words “stay-put.” We do not read 

the “stay-put” provision to give parents the unilateral power to 

prevent schools from complying with the IDEA. 

Precedent analyzing “stay-put” buttresses our decision.

In Honig, the Supreme Court explained that “stay-put’s”

expansive text is limited by the IDEA’s purpose—to “strip 

schools of the unilateral authority they had traditionally 

employed to exclude disabled students . . . from school.” 484 

U.S. at 323. For that reason, we have explained that the “stayput” provision “reflect[s] Congress’s conclusion that a child 

with a disability is best served by maintaining her educational 

status quo until the disagreement over her IEP is resolved.”

M.R. v. Ridley Sch. Dist., 744 F.3d 112, 118 (3d Cir. 2014). 

The “stay-put” provision realizes this purpose by

implementing “a type of ‘automatic preliminary injunction’ 

preventing local educational authorities from unilaterally 

changing a student’s existing educational program.” Michael 

C. ex rel. Stephen C. v. Radnor Twp. Sch. Dist., 202 F.3d 642, 

650 (3d Cir. 2000).

The purpose just described is not implicated, however, 

when a parent unilaterally acts to change a student’s school 

district. When a student voluntarily transfers to a new district, 

“the status quo no longer exists.” Ms. S. v. Vashon Island Sch. 

Dist., 337 F.3d 1115, 1133 (9th Cir. 2003), superseded by 

statute on other grounds as stated in G.M. ex rel. Marchese v. 

Dry Creek Joint Elementary Sch. Dist., 595 F. App’x 698 (9th 

Cir. 2014). In such situations, the parents of the student must 

accept the consequences of their decision to transfer districts. 
11

Given the tailored nature of the intrastate transfer 

provision, we hold that the “stay-put” provision does not apply 

when a student voluntarily transfers school districts within a 

state and the new school district will satisfy the IDEA by 

complying with the intrastate transfer provision.

B

1

Having determined that Howell did not have to adhere 

to the exact requirements of Lakewood’s IEP (much less the 

continued physical placement of S.B. at the private SCHI, as 

Appellant argues), we turn to whether Howell satisfied its 

obligation to provide S.B. a FAPE as required by the IDEA. 

According to Appellant, Howell’s services were not 

comparable to those S.B. received at SCHI. 

The record lacks evidence to support Appellant’s claim. 

Appellant blames this lack of evidence on the fact he was 

“never . . . afforded an opportunity to challenge Howell’s 

representation that its program was either appropriate or 

comparable to what S.B. had been receiving at SCHI.” Reply 

Br. 7. This is true, but only because of Appellant’s unilateral 

decision to keep S.B. enrolled in SCHI and away from 

Memorial Elementary. Appellant cannot saddle the school 

district with the consequences of his decision.

On the record before us, we cannot say the services were 

not comparable. Ample evidence shows Howell intended to 

provide “services comparable to those described in [S.B.’s] 

previously held IEP.” 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(2)(C)(i)(I). After 

the Howell IEP Team met S.B. and reviewed his Lakewood 

IEP, it produced a memorandum listing these services S.B. 
12

would receive at Memorial Elementary: “speech therapy three 

times a week in an individual setting and once a week in a 

group setting; occupational therapy two times a week in an 

individual setting and once a week in a group setting; and 

physical therapy once a week in a group setting.” Y.B. ex rel. 

S.B. v. Howell Twp. Bd. of Educ., 2020 WL 1320137, at *2

(D.N.J. Mar. 20, 2020). That therapy schedule matches the one

S.B. received under his Lakewood IEP. Howell also “arranged 

for the provision of related services for S.B. consistent with the 

Lakewood IEP and . . . made arrangements for transportation 

services for S.B. and his special need for a welcome on the 

school bus.” Y.B., 2020 WL 1320137, at *2.

Rather than sending S.B. to Howell and then 

challenging the services as inadequate through a due process 

hearing—the procedure contemplated by the IDEA—

Appellant eschewed the school district’s offer, refused to send 

S.B. to Howell, and unilaterally continued his placement at 

SCHI. In doing so, Appellant prevented Howell from 

implementing its services at all, so there is no evidence the 

services offered were not “comparable.” Because the record 

lacks evidence of non-comparable services, Howell did not 

violate the IDEA.

2

The requirements of the intrastate transfer provision

extend beyond merely the provision of comparable services, 

and include the eventual development, adoption, and 

implementation of a new IEP (or the adoption of the previous 

IEP) by the transferee district. When a parent’s conduct 

bypasses the procedures contemplated by the IDEA, the parent 

deprives the school of the opportunity to comply with the law.

Here, Appellant’s actions prevented the Howell staff from 
13

having the chance to “develop[], adopt[], and implement[] a 

new IEP” for S.B. 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(2)(C)(i)(I). Under these 

circumstances, Howell cannot be liable for not creating a 

tailored IEP for S.B.

Because the record discloses no evidence that Howell 

failed to provide S.B. with services comparable to those set 

forth in his prior IEP, the District Court did not err in holding 

that Howell satisfied the intrastate transfer provision.

V

Appellant also claims he is entitled to a reimbursement 

from Howell for the costs of S.B.’s attendance at SCHI (for the 

period between December 2016 and July 2017). We disagree.

“[P]arents who unilaterally change their child’s 

placement . . . without the consent of state or local school 

officials, do so at their own financial risk” because if a school 

district meets its IDEA obligations “the parents would be 

barred from obtaining reimbursement for any interim period.”

Sch. Comm. of Burlington v. Dep’t of Educ., 471 U.S. 359, 

373–74 (1985).

4 Because the “stay-put” provision does not 

apply and all the evidence shows that Howell stood ready to 

provide comparable services, Howell is not responsible for

reimbursements.

4

In Burlington, the Supreme Court addressed the Education of 

the Handicapped Act (EHA), a predecessor of the IDEA. 

“EHA jurisprudence concerning appropriate remedies has, 

however, been incorporated wholesale into IDEA 

jurisprudence.” D.F. v. Collingswood Borough Bd. of Educ., 

694 F.3d 488, 496 n.8 (3d Cir. 2012).
14

* * *

The IDEA aims to ensure “that all children with 

disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public 

education that emphasizes special education and related 

services designed to meet their unique needs.” 20 U.S.C.

§ 1400(d)(1)(A). For students who voluntarily transfer districts 

within a state, we hold the “stay-put” provision inapplicable, 

and a school district will meet its FAPE obligations by 

complying with the intrastate transfer provision. And when a 

school district meets its FAPE obligations, parents have no 

right to reimbursement of tuition costs. For these reasons, we 

will affirm. 
1

Y.B. v. Howell Township Board of Education, No. 20-1840

ROTH, Circuit Judge, concurring:

In view of Y.B.’s position that the stay put rule must 

apply here, I would like to expand upon the reasons that, in an 

intrastate-transfer case such as this one, the stay-put provision 

is not applicable in determining a child’s placement.

The stay-put provision “reflect[s] Congress’s 

conclusion that a child with a disability is best served by 

maintaining her educational status quo until the disagreement 

over her IEP is resolved.”1 “[W]hen a plaintiff has challenged 

the student’s educational placement in place at the time the 

‘stay-put provision’ is invoked,”2courts typically look to the 

last agreed upon placement prior to the dispute over the 

proposed placement.3 Yet, when a student transfers to a new 

school district, that is not so. In that situation, contrary to 

Y.B.’s position before us, the intrastate-transfer provision 

governs the placement of the child. 

In Michael C. ex rel. Stephen C. v. Radnor Twp. Sch. 

Dist.,

4 we suggested that a state’s agreement might be 

sufficient to bind a local school district to the placement 

provided for in a particular IEP. However, we did not in 

Michael have to decide the issue in the context of an intrastate 

1 M.R. v. Ridley Sch. Dist., 744 F.3d 112, 118 (3d Cir. 2014). 

2 G.B. v. Dist. of Columbia, 78 F. Supp. 3d 109, 113 (D.D.C. 

2015). 

3 E.g., Ventura de Paulino v. N.Y.C. Dep’t of Educ., 959 F.#d

59, 532 (2d Cir. 2020).

4 202 F.3d 642, 650 (3d Cir. 2000).
2

transfer. Addressing interstate transfers, we held in Michael 

that “when a student moves from State A to State B, any prior 

IEP in effect in State A need not be treated by State B as 

continuing automatically in effect.”5 “Because Congress left 

primary responsibility for providing a FAPE and for 

implementing the IDEA to the states, we [found] it unlikely 

that Congress intended the stay-put provision . . . to impose a 

requirement on states that they must implement an IEP 

established in another state without considering how consistent 

that IEP was with the policies and mandates of the student’s 

new residential state.”6 Moreover, although Michael was 

decided before the intrastate-transfer provision, and nearlyidentical interstate-transfer provision,7 were enacted, those 

provisions do not undermine – indeed, they enhance –

Michael’s holding that the stay-put provision sometimes must 

yield to other provisions of the IDEA. 

The first reason for which the stay-put provision must 

yield to the intrastate-transfer provision is because the text of 

the intrastate-transfer provision and its accompanying 

regulationsstate that a transferee school district “shall provide” 

a FAPE “including services comparable to those in the 

previously held IEP.”8 It speaks in mandatory terms, 

acknowledges the existence of a “previously held IEP,” 

explicitly excuses strict compliance with that IEP, and does not 

create an exception for situations where the parents initiate a 

due process hearing. The term “previously held IEP,” 

combined with the intrastate-transfer provision’s title, 

5

Id. at 651.

6

Id.at 650. 

7 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(2)(C)(i)(II).

8 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(2)(C)(i)(I) (emphasis added).
3

“Program for children who transfer school districts,” further 

confirms that the previously held IEP is no longer the 

mandatory standard used to determine the child’s placement. 

Moreover, the IDEA’s accompanying regulations 

provide more generally that a “child’s placement . . . [i]s based

on the child’s IEP,”9 not that the placement must be identical 

to the placement in the previously held IEP. Although the 

regulations state that “[t]he placement decision . . . [i]s made 

by a group of persons, including the parents, and other persons 

knowledgeable about the child, the meaning of the evaluation 

data, and the placement options,”10 the intrastate-transfer 

provision requires the new school district to provide 

comparable services “in consultation with parents,” not to give 

the parents a veto power. Indeed, it is ultimately the school 

district that makes a placement decision.11 “Parental 

dissatisfaction is channeled through administrative and (if 

necessary) judicial proceedings.”12 

Second, even though the Lakewood IEP’s placement 

was determined in accordance with state procedures, we do not 

think that Howell should be bound by all of Lakewood’s 

decisions. The IDEA requires each local educational agency 

to adopt its own “policies, procedures, and programs that are 

consistent with the State policies and procedures” for 

9 34 C.F.R. § 300.116(b)(2) (emphasis added).

10 Id. § 300.116(a)(1).

11 See, e.g., Doe v. E. Lyme Bd. Of Educ., 790 F.3d 440, 449 

(2d Cir. 2015) (“the duty to issue an IEP remains with the 

educational agency . . . and a parent’s right of participation is 

not a right to ‘veto’ the agency’s proposed IEP.”)

12 Id.
4

providing a FAPE.13 The Lakewood IEP was adopted under 

Lakewood’s policies and procedures, not Howell’s. The stayput provision “prevents[s] local educational authorities from

unilaterally changing a student’s existing educational 

program,14 but it does not allow parents to impose one school 

district’s policies onto another school district by voluntarily 

moving there. Moreover, New Jersey’s “approval” of the 

Lakewood IEP was made under circumstances that no longer 

apply: the fact that S.B. had been residing in a district that 

could not provide a FAPE for S.B. As explained above, 

Howell has offered to provide a FAPE for S.B.

Third, Y.B.’s approach to the stay-put provision leaves 

no textual basis for an exception in cases where an intrastatetransfer renders strict compliance with the previous IEP 

impossible.15 Although that situation is not before us, it is not 

clear how such an exception could exist if we hold, as Y.B.

argues, that the “comparable” services provision in § 

1414(d)(2)(C)(i)(I) must take a backseat to the stay-put 

provision. 

Finally, “a more specific provision governs over a more 

general statute when there is conflict between the two 

statutes.”16 To the extent that there is any conflict between the 

intrastate-transfer and stay-put provisions, the intrastate13 20 U.S.C. § 1413(a)(1).

14 Michael, 202 F.3d at 650.

15 Cf. Ms. S. v. Vashon Island Sch. Dist., 337 F.3d 1115, 1134 

(9th Cir. 2003), superseded by statute on other grounds as stated 

in G.M. ex rel. Marchese v. Dry Creek Joint Elementary 

Sch.Dist., 595 F. App’s 698 (9th Cir. 2014).

16 In re Udell, 454 F.3d 180, 186 (3d Cir. 2006).
5

transfer provision more specifically addresses what statutory 

requirements apply to transfer students. Therefore, the 

intrastate-transfer provision governs. 

In summary, when a student voluntarily transfers to a 

new district, the parents must accept the consequences of their 

decision: that there is no longer any agreed-upon placement 

and therefore “the status quo no longer exists.”17 Although 

“parents [can] unilaterally change their child’s placement,” 

they “do so at their own financial risk.”

18

 If the courts 

ultimately determine that the IEP proposed by the transferee 

school officials is appropriate, the parents are barred from 

obtaining reimbursement for any interim period.19 

I agree with our holding that S.B.’s educational 

placement at the time the dispute arose would be the 

“comparable services” offered by Howell. It was not his

placement at SCHI.20 Accordingly, I concur with the judgment 

of the Court. 

17 Ms. S., 337 F.3d at 1134.

18 Sch. Comm. of Town of Burlington v. Dep’t of Educ.of Mass., 

471 U.S. 359, 373-74 (1985).

19 See id.

20 Cf. N.W. ex rel. J.W. v. Boone Cty. Bd. Of Educ., 763 F.3d 

611, 617 (6th Cir. 2014)) (holding that the private school to 

which parents sent child was not the child’s current placement 

because the school district never agreed to the placement).